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Military small arms are subjected to the most harsh operating conditions… from humid tropical environments to super dry and 100+ degree deserts. Dust, dirt, fouling and moisture threaten the functional reliability of all war-time weapons. Reliability can never be sacrificed when human lives are at stake. Weapons must be maintained or casualties accrue and objectives become compromised. Weapons must be lubricated and protected. Clean is an option.

So how do military personnel maintain their weapons and what products are being used?

All combat personnel are issued a basic CLP that is supposed to clean, lubricate and protect the weapon. Is it the best? Possibly not.

This is LSA Lubricant from Sarco, Inc. It’s strictly a lubricating oil and very cheap. The price for a quart or 32 oz is $8.00. It was originally manufactured for the M16 rifle during the Vietnam war. LSA is a synthetic based semi-fluid grease with a lithium stearate thickener. It was a good lubricate and protectant for automatic weapons. The Mil Spec is MIL-L-46000. However it did not clean.

Some combat units issued different products and apparently there is no standard brand per say. I read one unit was issued G96 Synthetic CLP while another was issued Otis CLP. BreakFree CLP was another popular CLP used in Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. A National Guard soldier said he was getting Royco 634E through the supply chain. Apparently Royco was a standard issue to some of the military branches. It meets Mil Spec MIL-R-6346OD-AMD3. It’s made by Royal Lubricants.

There seems to be no standard with the exception of the Mil Spec. All seemed to work well but they are definitely not the best available. BreakFree CLP is most likely one of the more effective CLP’s but it is not “bio friendly”. In other words it contains some harmful chemicals. It’s probably not as harmful as “Agent Orange” though. Anyway it’s probably the least of worries in a war. BreakFree CLP does work well. It does keep M4’s in action…and M60’s

Simple Green has also been reported as being used in many military posts. It’s fairly easy to get, cleans anything without harm and is biodegradable. Simple Green is a cleaner only. It does not lubricate or protect metal. When in desperate situations, it’s a great product to have on hand.

There are some new firearm CLP’s on the market that are excellent cleaner, lubricant and protectants AND safer to use. A few of these products are FrogLube CLP, FireClean CLP, Archoil AR4200, M-Pro 7 LPX and Otis Bio CLP. These are high performing products that are “Green” or environment friendly. They feature the best lubricating properties, corrosion resistance and fouling removal. These products “treat” the metal surface to retard fouling and reduce friction. They all passed the “salt spray” torture test.

If you want to read more about the performance of these new CLP’s, visit this blog…www.guncleaningtips.com. You’ll find real CLP performance tests/reviews on various guns.

It’s a very difficult task of rolling out supplies to combat troops. The logistics are a nightmare. And then there are the politics involved in the supply contracts. It’s not always the best product that gets the contract. Politics and money determine the contract awards. Politicians are bought and sold like stocks and bonds. Suppliers wine and dine congressman in order to get lucrative military contracts worth millions of dollars.

Some soldiers buy his/her own CLP’s at the base but when in combat, they have no choice but to use whatever is available in the field. Anything is better than nothing, especially when your weapon is jamming and dirty. Hot water can be used to flush out fouling and dirt.

Canned air is a popular item that you will find in most combat outposts. It’s effective in clearing actions and barrels of dust and dirt or sand. You get real creative when in the field….because you have no choice.

AEY Inc. is a U.S. Government arms and ammunition supplier and had been awarded almost $300 million in contracts. These contracts were to supply the Afghan army during the US Afghanistan War.

Lets look a little closer at AEY Inc. The CEO (Efraim E. Diveroli) is 22 years old and the Vice President is a masseuse. It gets even uglier. AEY operates out of Miami Beach in an unmarked office. Nice huh? AEY was incorporated in 1999 when Efraim was 13 years old. His experience with arms and ammunition was very limited, similar to working in a gun shop. Nevertheless he pursued government contracts aggressively.

AEY Inc was awarded a $126,000 ammunition contract in 2004 for the Special Forces and also provided equipment to the Department of Energy, EPA, TSA and the State Department.

How they were approved as a supplier..I don’t know!!! I suspect they bought somebody.

AEY Inc. managed to secure another contract for $5.7 million for rifles for the Iraqi forces. The company started to get a bad name because they were not reliable yet continued to do business with and make deliveries to the U.S. Government.

In 2007 AEY Inc. was awarded another contract. Why? Because “AEY’s proposal represented the best value to the government.” In other words the price was the lowest. They did not care about what they were buying or from who. Actually there is one more possibility….AEY Inc. was paying someone. Maybe AEY Inc. had a Lobbyist in Washington?

Nobody checked out this business at all. What is that???

The huge ammunition (millions of rounds) contract AEY Inc. had secured was represented by 40 year old military surplus from Albania. Since there was no testing requirement for the 7.62x54R munitions, any ammo that would function could be delivered. He picked up huge lots of old surplus ammo for around $22 per 1000 rounds. He probably tripled his money on the ammo. The Afghan army officials refused to use some of the ammo. It was substandard and corroded and/or damaged.

Here is the 7.62x54R ammunition supplied to the Afghan military by AEY Inc. It is corroded badly and was most likely stored in old barns or abandoned warehouses. This ammunition was exposed to moisture and the elements for long periods of time. The 7.62x54R round is widely used in AK pattern rifles and machine guns. It is manufactured in many Euro countries and is a very effective round. It is equivalent to the U.S. 7.62×51 or .308 NATO.

AEY never disclosed, and neither did the Army, its sources for weapons and ammunition. Some of its sources were Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia. AEY Inc. did business with known Black Market dealers.

Albania has huge stockpiles of 7.62x54R ammunition made by China in the 1960’s and 70’s. It has been said that these stockpiles should all be destroyed. AEY Inc. purchased more than 100 million rounds.

AEY Inc. has violated many laws and may have been involved with the black market. They are a real “shady” organization.

It’s amazing how this type of company can do business with the U.S. Government first of all.. and then break laws….and supply garbage. And do they get caught? Shutdown? Investigated? NOPE

How can this happen? It seems like it would have been soooo easy to decline this supplier in the very beginning. This company had no prior experience in arms sales with the U.S. or any other government.

So how did AEY Inc. get supplier approval and $300 million in contracts?

I guess you could ask the same question about the F-35 fighter. How did Lockheed Martin get the contract after HUGE cost over-runs like $100 million per plane. It started out at $35 million and ended up at $135 million per plane.

I have a one word answer…. LOBBYISTS.

For the U.S. Government to approve an unknown arms supplier with no past expereince, no real business office or credentials is preposterous….unthinkable even. There are plenty of suppliers for arms and weapons so it’s not like there is a shortage.

The Soviet War in Afghanistan started in 1979 and ended in 1989. It was another Vietnam War with huge casualties and never ending. The Soviets wanted a “friendly” leader in Afghanistan while the U.S. wanted revenge for the Soviet support of VC in Vietnam.

Just another political war where people pay the price for senseless leader/government ambitions.

The U.S. supported the Afghan gorilla fighters with weapons and money. No U.S. troops were in any combat ops in Afghanistan. The CIA was covertly spending $30 million on arms in 1980 which increased to $630 million in 1987 in order to push the Soviet Union out. The CIA purchased arms from other countries in the region even from the Soviet Union. Corruption was everywhere.

Here’s some other interesting facts:

The U.S. offered two economic packages to support Pakistan’s role in the Soviet Afghanistan War. The 1st six-year package amounted to $3.2 billion and spanned from 1981 to 1987. It was comprised of “economic assistance” and military sales. The 2nd six-year package was $4.2 billion and divided between grants/loans with low interest and credit for military purchases. Another $20 million was funneled into Afghanistan for training.

The United States spent huge sums of money on the Afghan fighters or better known as the Mujahideen. And the war went on for 10 years. So how much did the U.S. spend on this senseless war? …$$$$ BILLIONS. And what was the return or benefit??? Look at Afghanistan now.

Defense spending has been spiraling out of control at over $500 Billion annually….thanks to Lobbyists (Lockheed Martin) who spend over $100 million on Congress. That’s how the Government works.

Anyway let’s talk about the new 5th gen fighter…the F-35 Lightning II. Originally the request from the military was for a 5th gen fighter for $35 million a piece. Well… now that they are in production the cost comes out to around $135 million a piece. Gee what happened??? Oh and yes they are still going to go ahead and order 2,400 F-35 fighters too. This is ridiculous pork belly spending. The F-35 project went out of control and nobody did anything or even cared. The F-22 was supposedly canceled because it was $150 million per plane and that was too much. Really???

So why does the U.S. need a new 5th gen fighter? We are told to “rule our airspace”. If we don’t top other fighters then we will loose our air superiority. If this is true then why do we still use the AH-64 Apache helicopter? It’s design is over 30 years old. Yet it is still being manufactured today.

In today’s air combat, missiles are the main armament and are super sophisticated. Some air to air missiles can track and strike targets out at 100 miles. There is no visual at 100 miles. So with that being said, how maneuverable does the fighter aircraft need to be??? Air combat 2014 is… launch a missile first or deploy counter measures to avoid being hit. I don’t see any dogfights this day and age. Oh and Stealth technology is not what you are being told.

The F-22 and most likely the F-35 are maintenance dogs. For every hour in the air they require 20-30 hours of maintenance. The more sophistication, the less reliability. Systems fail frequently on these planes. So we’ll have less reliable planes in the air to protect us. Great!

The smart plan would have been to take one of our current fighters like the F-16 or F-18 and upgrade it with stealth and weapon systems. Pilots already have a lot of experience flying combat missions in these. Spend money on missiles so you can take out enemy planes before they see you. This is intelligent spending. But congress doesn’t do that. They do what the lobbyist want and print more money.

Bottom line….a $300,000 missile can take out a $100 million plane…get the picture?

UH-1D “Huey” gunship used in Vietnam in the infamous “Search and Destroy” missions. The armament includes 2 Miniguns,( one on each side) door mounted dual M60 machine guns and 2 rocket pods yielding 7 rockets per pod. The Huey gunship was very effective at suppressing the VC during troop transport missions. They would cruise at 150 feet and lay down some serious firepower.

The Minigun has a rate of fire of 4,000 rounds per minute. The door mounted M60 does 550 rounds per minute.

The Vietnam War lasted over 15 long years (1960-1975) with hundreds of thousands of casualties. It was one of the most difficult wars for the US. The terrain was thickly foliated, rocky, wet, swampy and just out right treacherous. The enemy or VC (Viet Cong) knew the terrain and knew how to fight. They were highly underestimated. Their numbers approached 300,000 strong. The north had a population of about 16 million and were ready to replenish fallen soldiers in minutes. The Viet Cong were heavily supported by Russia and China. The battles were numerous, bloody and very long.

The TET Offensive was hell. The VC attacked every where and at the same time. All of the U.S. outposts were under heavy fire from morters, artillery and small arms fire. There were heavy losses and thousands of wounded soldiers. It lasted forever…as it seemed.

Battle/combat stress causes well trained soldiers to turn into ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. Soldiers do anything to release stress like firing their weapons. The walk around looking for the enemy so they can shoot. The jungle silence drives them crazy. Some take off running, screaming and yelling and sometimes shooting at anything that moves. They play games with knives and their weapons. The stress of knowing the enemy is out there and at any time could attack is nerve racking. Night fall was the worst. This is when the VC would attack. It was pitch black. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. You couldn’t sleep at all.